Cocktail Cup

A nicely proportioned footed liqueur cup, small and considered, is what Spratling called a cocktail cup, though the form is in truth closer to the former. The maker's own naming sits a little loose against the form, and the discrepancy is part of the pleasure of the piece, a reminder that the catalogue language did not always match the object.

The cup dates from the first design period, 1931 to 1946, the founding years of Spratling's Las Delicias taller in Taxco. Its appeal is proportion: a compact footed vessel balanced on its small base.

Footed cups of this kind were a staple of the holloware line, and one where the workshop's own name for the form is recorded makes a tidy footnote to how Spratling thought about his tableware.